Vampire Knight - A Bloody Persuasion - 3 Parts
by NoxPerpetuo
Summary: Okay, children of the Knight. I know this is old hat in the Vampire Knight fanfic arena, but I don't care. It annoys the holy living crap outta me that Yuki is such a weakling. How could she let Kaname get away? I was compelled to rectify the idiotic conclusion to VK. In order to do this, I had to fix Yuki's personality defects, and Kaname needs to stop being a pathological liar.
1. A Bloody Persuasion - 1 of 3

Part 1 – A Bloody Persuasion

Kaname and Yuki kept to the old cobblestone road as they cut through the dim, dripping forest. Night gradually fell. A misty fog settled all around, shrouding the jagged mountains that rose above the tree-line. The three others who trailed along behind squabbled noisily, reminding Yuki of siblings crushed together in the back seat on a long car ride.

Yuki and Kaname paced on in reflective silence. Both of them stared at the road, ignoring the others and one another, so close to making contact without ever touching.

"Where are we going, Kaname?" Yuki finally said, when she couldn't bare his silence any longer.

"For tonight, we will stay at one of the estates our people have hidden in the foothills," said Kaname, still staring blank-eyed at the road in front of him. "We will move on before tomorrow night, but even I can't go on forever without rest."

"Yes. Rest," said Yuki, glancing sidelong at Kaname from under her new-found waves of streaming, black hair. "And…"

"Yes?"

"I was hoping that we could talk," she said as gently as she could. "Because… It's just… I have so many questions…"

"Yes, Yuki, you must," he sighed.

"Lord Kaname!?" shouted one of the followers.

Lord Kaname and Lady Yuki turned back to look him.

"Aido?" Kaname finally said.

"I was thinking that since we're not _technically_ students at Cross Academy anymore, we could, you know…"

"You want to feed?"

"Yes," said Aido, eagerly. "It feels like I haven't eaten a real meal in years."

"Go," said Lord Kaname, "But I ask that you take only animals until we are certain that we are not being pursued."

"Aw!" said one of the others, but his comments were cut short when Kaname's eyes flashed angrily.

"We must slip through unnoticed," he said in a clipped voice, before he turned to his companion. "Yuki?"

"You want me to go too?"

"Do you wish to join tonight's hunt?"

"I didn't even know we could eat animals."

"Or we could always… "

Kaname's expression didn't change. He didn't raise a suggestive eyebrow, or do something so crude as leer at her, but still, Yuki had the strangest feeling, like Kaname was waiting for some signal.

"Oh. No! I'm not hungry. Not even a little bit! You don't have to worry about me, Kaname!" She said in her brightest, most reassuring voice.

Then, not wanting to meet Kaname's intense, searching gaze, Yuki turned to Aido, and said, "You three go ahead. We will meet you later, at this estate we're supposed to be heading for. You know the way?"

"It's my family's summer house. I can find it blindfolded," he reassured her.

"We'll see you there, then," she said, and shifted her eyes back to the road.

Kaname paced silently on ahead after the three followers melted into the dark forest. Yuki hesitated, and then came trailing behind him.

"I want to know more about Mother and Father, Kaname," she said when she had finally caught up to him.

"This is a story that will take longer than just one night to tell."

"It's just…" she trailed off.

Kaname glanced at her questioningly.

"I don't really know anything. I don't even really know who I am! My memories are coming back, but only in bits and pieces. Everything is so different, and…"

"And?"

"And… so… Here we are, just leaving together. I'm leaving my old life behind, and I'm going with you into a different world. Even with my memories, I know very little about what I'm plunging into. But I know you Kaname. At least, I _think_ I know you. I feel like I can trust you, even if sometimes I don't understand why you do certain things. I trust you because you've been there, watching over me, planning all this time to bring me back to myself, when you could have just left me safe and sound, living as a normal human girl."

"You were never normal. Nor were you ever a human girl," he interjected. "And never, not even for a moment, were you honestly safe."

"Well," she went on, "I thought I was normal. I thought I was safe enough. But that was all your doing, wasn't it? Maybe you can't imagine what it felt like for me, spending all those years thinking that I was just your favorite pet or something. When I had no memory of our life before, I always thought that perhaps someday you would lose interest in me. I imagined that I'd wake up one day, and you'd be gone forever. Sometimes, I thought it might even be you who eventually ended my life, not that the idea bothered me too much.

The way I saw things, you had given me the rest of my life after that snowy day. My life was yours to do whatever you wanted with it. Even if you had chosen to _end_ it without warning, I would have accepted it without complaint.

Now that things are coming back to me, now that I'm starting to remember who I was, I need to understand why you worked so hard to bring me back. Was it just habit or a sense of duty? Did you owe someone a debt? Do you…?"

Kaname stared silently at Yuki, his face softening with every word she spoke. As she trailed off, his eyes regained their usual razor-sharp intensity.

"Do I… what?" he said.

Yuki hesitated. She wanted to ask him, 'Do you love me?' but she couldn't force the words out. Her throat had suddenly gone dry.

"Never mind," she said, fear pounding in her chest. She looked down at the road, away from him, afraid to provoke him into another lie. Afraid of the truth.

Kaname was suddenly in front of her, so close that his deep red eyes filled her entire view. Yuki stopped in her tracks, still fearful, and yet not really wanting to escape. His arms wrapped gently around her upper back, pulling her against him.

"Yuki," he said, "I don't want you to worry. You know I will do everything I can to protect you."

"I know, Kaname!" she said, suddenly annoyed, pushing against his chest with her elbows. "You've said that a thousand times! For now, I _need_ you to protect me, but that's only because I don't know how to protect myself. That's only because I don't even know who… or _what_ … I need to protect myself from! I want you to help me understand what's happened to me! I want to know what happened to you, too! I want something more than just your reassurances that you'll protect me from," at this, her voice dropped to a whisper, "the monster. The one I saw when…"

"You drank my blood?" he said, sedately, still not allowing Yuki to thrust him away.

"Yes," she hissed.

"I wish I could protect you from this monster, but that is the one thing I cannot do."

The struggle went out of her, and she allowed him to crush her flat against his chest.

"What do you mean, Kaname?"

"What did you see last night when you looked into my memories?"

"I saw Uncle Rido, and he was standing above me at some kind of alter. Blood… There was blood flowing down. I could see a reflection in his eyes, a terrifying monster. I saw nightmare teeth, shadows and red, glowing eyes full of blood lust."

"Do you understand what that was? What you were seeing?"

"Not anything more than what I just told you."

Kaname sighed.

"When you partake in the blood of others, sometimes you will be able to enter their minds, feel their feelings, or even see some of their memories. What you see, though, will always be from their own point of view."

"So… you were there with that monster, too?" said Yuki, burying her face in Kaname's shoulder.

"In a sense. What you saw was a reflection of my true form, Yuki. The nightmare teeth, the blood lust, all of it; that was me. Or, more accurately, it was the way I looked in my most degraded, debased form after not feeding for thousands of years."

"You?!" she hissed, renewing her struggle. "No. No, Kaname! You are my older brother! We have the same parents! You can't hide that from me anymore! I remember growing up with you!"

She shoved hard. He allowed her to break free, to back away from him.

"I'm older than just this one life of ours, Yuki. I am older than this civilization or the one that came before it. Pureblood vampires can live almost forever. We never age, and we are almost impossible to kill. When we seem to die, if there is anything left of our essence, even just a tiny fragment, we can be resurrected to full vitality. Needless to say, there is a reason that even other vampires instinctually fear us."

"What happened? Does this mean you're not really my brother?"

"I am, and again, I am not."

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"It will," he said, "If you allow me to explain."

"You're going to have to, aren't you?"

"Much of this part of the story happened long before you were born, and while I laid unaware, still slumbering beneath the earth. I know only what I have been able to piece together since my resurrection."

"They say your Uncle Rido was obsessed with your mother from the moment he laid eyes on her. When she eventually fell in love and married someone else, he was beside himself with grief. Later, when he learned that the union had produced a son, he went on a jealous rampage. He took out his rage on the unfortunate infant. He kidnapped your brother, and used him in a blood ritual to resurrect me.

Rido was, like all vampires, a complex and conflicted being. He claimed to have loved your mother. He claimed to have been betrayed, despite the fact that she had promised him nothing. Your mother and Rido were brother and sister, you see, two of three children of the Kuran line at that time. Although, Rido was always thought to be the weakest and most volatile of the three children. Your mother wisely chose the strongest and kindest of her two brothers to be her husband."

"Mother and Father were siblings. Yes. I already knew that much. Uncle Rido was really my uncle, then, too?"

"Yes. Then, the other side of the story is that Rido also had been plotting for some time to create some sort of monster, a servant of sorts, to help him take control of vampire society by force. He fancied himself a king, it seems. It was utter madness, of course, as had apparently always been his way.

I had been sleeping for millennia while all of this scheming was going on. I knew nothing until I was brought back into the world. And…" Kaname grimaced, "I had no choice."

"Wait. You said Rido _used_ my brother in some kind of ritual? So then, if you aren't my brother like you keep saying, who are you? What happened to my real brother?"

"The ritual merged his essence with my own, to create a hybrid consciousness and being. His original body was destroyed in the ritual."

"That blood. The alter…?"

"Yes. That was all Rido's doing. Your brother was sacrificed to resurrect me. When I awoke, I was surrounded by a waterfall of blood, and I was hungry enough to swallow the world. I drank every drop without thinking where it came from. That was the memory fragment you saw, the last moment before my own mind and that of your brother's became one."

"To kill a helpless infant, it's…" Yuki shuddered.

"Disgusting? Wrong? Evil? I agree. Rido was a madman. A true monster."

"Why can't vampires stop this?" Yuki said, tears welling in her eyes. "Why can't we live in peace?!"

"I'm sorry, Yuki. All vampires are monsters. I did warn you."

"And now, I'm one of them," she said, backing farther away from him.

"You were always one of them. I only returned you to your true form."

"I… I think maybe it would have been better if I stayed human, even if I lost my mind," she frowned.

"It would have been a waste of your precious life. The humans would have had to lock you away. You would have become like a level-E. Your body would have kept on living long after all reason had perished, consumed in the chaos of your unrelenting blood-lust. The process had already started when I restored your true form. This way is better. This way, you be able to choose what kind of monster you will be."

"I'm… I'm not a monster!"

"We all are, Yuki. It is our nature. Although, some of us may be more monstrous than others. Only time will tell."

"Why didn't you tell me any of this… before?" she sobbed, too angry to look at him. "You talk about letting me choose, but if I don't know the truth, how can I know what I really want?!"

"Without the memories that I returned to you, how much of this would have made sense? You would have acted in ways that put you in danger if you knew the truth. You were in such a fragile state as a human, the knowledge, and the actions it would have made you take, together, they would have driven you to your death."

Her shoulders sagged. He was right. This story would have been absolute gibberish had he attempted to tell her before she turned, before her memories had come back. It would have terrified her. She would have shut him out, screamed in his face, and denied the truth at any cost. If she had even believed it, she would have called him a murderer, and she would have driven him away.

Without Kaname standing by to return her to her true form, she would have gone mad from the rising blood-lust. She would have become less than an animal, a dirty, frantic creature, locked away and forgotten by The Association in some dank, unmarked prison cell. The only time anyone would even bother to touch her would be when they came to take her blood to use in their experiments. She would spend her last days screaming incoherently in the dark until she died from despair. No one would even remember her name when they finally threw her wasted body into a shallow, unmarked grave.

"There's more," said Kaname, interrupting her dark and spiraling thoughts.

"More?"

She wasn't sure she was ready to hear it just yet.

"Do you still want to know about Mother and Father?"

"Y… Yes," she stuttered, trying to square her shoulders.

"Very well," he sighed. "This is a longer story, but not so terrible as the last one, with a happier ending. Will you sit with me while I tell it? I don't think I can stand much longer. I've been planning, waiting and watching without being able to rest or feed for more than two decades."

'Except that time with Ruka,' Yuki wanted to say, but didn't.

Yuki's heart raced, momentarily squeezing the breath out of her. She didn't understand why this particular thought had emerged, or why it suddenly caused her so much turmoil.

Kaname stopped. He stared at her. A furrow formed between his eyes as he considered the sudden change that had come over Yuki. Embarrassed, Yuki quickly averted her eyes. Kaname remained silent, his gaze seeming to bore into her.

"What?!" she was finally forced to say, her eyes fixed pointedly upon the cobblestones.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"I… It doesn't matter. I…" she stuttered.

"I think I can guess, but that wouldn't be fair to you," he said, frowning. "I want to give you a chance to understand my reasons. Even I am weak at times, despite my efforts to avoid adding yet more sins and atrocities to the already considerable list of sins I must atone for."

"Ruka…" she said.

"Ruka. You were deeply troubled by what you witnessed that night you came to see me at the old dormitory?"

"It was the night I realized…"

"It was the night that the word 'vampire' came to be more than just a word to you."

"Yes," she shuddered. "I saw you…"

"I know what you saw. What you saw was real, too. I never intended for you to see me at such a weak moment. I felt like I had failed you that night."

"In a way, you did. Before, you were a hero to me. After…"

"A monster?"

"No. Still a hero. You were still the person who had given me my life, and yet somehow diminished."

"What do the humans say? 'Familiarity breeds contempt.'?" he said, looking down.

"I didn't hate you, though. I wasn't even really afraid, once I had a chance to think. My first human memories are of you tearing the heart out of someone with your bare hands, although, that time you were doing it to protect me. I already knew you were a vampire before I saw you with Ruka, and that vampires drink blood. It was just…"

"It was something different to see me harming another person, to see me feeding, as opposed to protecting you, wasn't it?"

"Yes. I never imagined…" she paused, her thoughts squirming and whining like a swarm of angry insects. "And…"

"And?"

"And also, when you say you haven't fed for decades, I know that this isn't true. You fed on Ruka at least that once."

"Only that once. It was exceptionally cruel of me to do such a thing. Cruel to Ruka. Cruel to you, as well.

For vampires, the drinking of another's blood has a meaning beyond the mere satiation of hunger. I knew this when I took her, which is why it was so cruel for me to have done such a thing. It meant something to her. It made her think she and I had a connection, even though we didn't."

"Why did you do it, then?"

"I was weak. You…"

"You can't blame me for what you did to Ruka!"

"I was going to say that you unknowingly tempted me that night you came to see me in the old dorm. It wasn't your fault. I am strong, but only to a point. The desire for your blood… I was in so much pain. And you were small, so young and fragile. I would have killed you without even meaning to. All my efforts to protect you would have been for naught," he sighed. "I picked you up and stumbled with you to my rooms, and I locked you inside so I couldn't get to you so easily. I suffered, being so close to your unconscious form, carrying you, resisting the urge to… I intend to flee, to seek out a distraction to ease my desires, but as I pulled the door closed behind me, Ruka happened to be coming down the hallway.

I was nearly in a frenzy. She didn't know you were there, but she did see there was something wrong with me. She knew the signs. She saw the sweat dripping, my glowing eyes, my shaking hands. Without hesitation, she offered herself to me, as any good and loyal follower would have. I knew what it would mean if I took her up on her offer, but at that moment, I didn't care. The blood-lust had me. It was all I could do to resist you, and then, here was someone offering to take your place, someone who wouldn't die so easily under my fangs. Without her offering, I might have been unable to resist harming you that night. A flimsy wooden door wasn't going to keep me out if the pain got any worse. So, I…"

He stopped, and stared at the ground, remembering.

"I hated myself for what I did to Ruka. I hated myself even more for what I made you witness that night. I knew it couldn't have been easy for you. I feared you would hate me, shun me, fear me. That day was the catalyst for the night class's first and greatest project; the creation of a blood replacement therapy. This program, and the blood tablets it eventually produced, has saved thousands of lives, vampire and human. The blood tablets have allowed vampires to maintain their existence without violence for the first time ever, if they so choose. Many human lives were saved, since there was finally a way for vampires to resist feeding upon the humans without suffering the pain of blood-lust. If anything, you inspired me to create a better world that night, simply by falling asleep on my stairway. Since that day, I have resisted feeding, even on other vampires."

Kaname paced to the side of the road, and sat upon the ragged remains of a fallen tree trunk. He was as beautiful and perfect as ever, but for just one moment, to Yuki's eyes he seemed so alien, so ancient. She could feel the waves of exhaustion as they ravaged his lanky frame.

Kaname offered the space to his left to Yuki with an unsteady swipe of the hand.

"Will you sit with me?"

Yuki's mind roiled. Did she even want to pretend everything was fine, and just sit down next to him as if he was still her old childhood friend, when obviously, everything was _not_ fine at all? What is the social protocol when discussing your infant brother's murder with someone who openly admits they had a hand in the deed? Do you sit with someone who has ravaged innocents, who has committed atrocity upon atrocity with no end in sight? What if they claim they don't have a choice, that they didn't always realize what they were doing until it was too late, that they did what they did because it is part of their nature? Probably not, she decided.

When Yuki didn't move, Kaname sighed, "Please. Sit with me."

Yuki still didn't sit. She wasn't going to sit. Instead, she crossed her arms and stared at him. She wanted to say something like, 'Just tell the rest of the damn story!' but she wasn't sure she was brave enough to speak without her voice faltering. Kaname's eyes flickered red. He wasn't used to being disobeyed.

Yuki held her ground, although inside, she was trembling. She had already witnessed what became of those who rebelled against Kaname's will, but she didn't care. If what Kaname said was true, then she wasn't going to sit with a monster, even if that meant he would tear her to pieces and leave her strewn in bloody chunks across the cobblestones. At least, she wasn't going to sit with this monster until he explained himself to her satisfaction.

"Fair enough," he sighed again as the fire in his eyes subsided. "You have that right."

"You still haven't told me about Mother and Father," she said, just barely containing her rage.

"This is what happened after Rido resurrected me.

I laid immobilized on the cold stone floor. My body had changed, and an alien presence had invaded my mind. I was too weak and distracted to use my powers to strike at Rido. I wanted to kill him for what he had done. I had laid myself down in the tomb for what I thought was the very last time. I never wanted to wake. I had hoped that eventually, my body would starve, and death would finally take me. Then, I was torn from my slumber by this babbling, wild-eyed madman.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I had taken the form of an infant when I had merged with your brother. Your father appeared, having tracked Rido to the spot. He saw an infant boy, which he assumed was his own son. Sadly, he was unaware that he had arrived too late to prevent the ritual from taking place. Rido and your father fought ferociously, the end result being that Rido was driven back. Your father scooped me up and fled without finishing the job. He was more concerned with rescuing his son than exacting his revenge.

He took me back to your mother, who was overjoyed when she thought that her son had survived the ordeal unscathed. The new body had not developed the motor capacity to speak. It was a hidden blessing, though, because this forced me to quietly observe your parents when I otherwise wouldn't have.

During this time, I came to realize what must have happened. The alien consciousness I sensed was that of an infant, the infant son that your father had been attempting to rescue. The consciousness was very vague. It was all feelings and desires, and it never spoke. Still, I could feel it inside of me, like a splinter just under the skin. I could experience its memories, emotions and dreams just as if they were my own.

I remember my own childhood. I was born a member of upper caste of a long-forgotten clan whose child-rearing methods were, at best, brutal and cold. Much was expected from the children born to the upper castes, so I was taken from my mother to begin my training before I was able to speak. This was their way.

Enough children died in training, it was considered unseemly for a mother to bond too closely to her infants. Grief, it was thought, would make a woman too weak to bare more children for the good of society. My clansmen thought nothing of it if a few children each year perished in the training, because those who died were weak, and hence they were useless. I survived the training, but I never saw my mother again.

The parents of the infant unknowingly cared for me. They were nothing like the only mother I had ever known. They were so gentle and kind, I wasn't sure what to think. The part of me that was me was suspicious. The part of me that was your brother loved these two people, and so I couldn't help but love them a little, too. At least, I loved them just enough to stay my hand and forgo using my powers to do them harm. Instead, I consoled myself to the thought that if I allowed them to nurture this immature body of mine, I would someday be able to take my vengeance upon the one who had resurrected me, this mad vampire named Rido."

"Our parents _were_ gentle," Yuki interrupted, taking a single, tentative step closer to him.

"They were more than gentle. They had something between them so rare that in my thousands of years of existence, I had only ever experienced it one other time, and then only too briefly. It was like a fragile, golden thread, like clear water springing up out of the desert, or a pure, bright light in the deepest darkness. What they had was love.

Love is the one thing that can keep the monster in every vampire's heart at bay. They loved one another, and they loved their child. Instead of vengeance, or madness, or anger, or greed, or boredom, the purpose that drove them was love at any cost. The fragile thread of their love made them stronger and better than they possibly could have been on their own.

They spent their time thinking of ways to use their vast accumulated wealth to help others, to mend the broken relations between vampires and humans. They didn't want this love of theirs to remain merely their own. They wanted to share their special talents and knowledge with the world, just as I had tried and failed to do in my earlier years, before the humans drove me into exile. Our parents wanted to share this light they had with rest of the cold, dark world. Together, connected and strengthened by love, they were able to set wheels in motion to accomplish this goal, wheels that are still working to this day. In the end, they were even willing to sacrifice themselves and risk everything to ensure the continuation of this end."

"So, they died protecting us, two pawns in their grand scheme to save the world. I know that part of the story now. That's not a happy ending, though, even if they felt like they died for a noble purpose. What about us? They abandoned us to the whims of the world, which seems to have become no brighter despite all their effort."

"I promised a happier ending, not a happy ending. Vampires never get happy endings, if they ever get any kind of ending at all. As creatures of darkness and nightmare, it is said we are doomed to someday die by violence in the darkness, as we have lived. The final result of our parents' efforts could be that vampire-kind may be driven to near extinction. The light, after all, is not a vampire's natural habitat."

"That's awful," she frowned, thinking. "No. You know what? No! I refuse to accept that! If our parents could become something better than 'creatures of darkness and nightmare', then so can any vampire. It's a choice! You can't tell me we have no choice but to murder people or die by murder, to choose between doing evil and going extinct!"

"There is another option."

"What?!"

"Sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?"

"This is the way our parents chose. They chose the path less-traveled, the third road, the left-hand path. They sacrificed themselves so that others could live. It is the noblest way a vampire can die, by giving up his life so that others may live. All other paths lead to an infinity of chaos."

Yuki took a step toward him. Did she still trust him after this? He did tell her… something… when she asked for the truth. This was the first time he had ever told her anything about herself or her past, she realized. Why did he wait until now? Why did he unload so much, after keeping this secret for so long? She was forced to admit to herself that she wouldn't have understood most of the story before she had her memories back. He knew that. Did she still trust him? The answer was a reluctant and tentative 'yes, but…'.

Yes, but what if this was just another manipulation on top of all that had come before? Did he really have the strength of will to lie to her and hide so much if this wasn't his normal way? People don't suddenly change, she knew, but then, Kaname wasn't exactly just a regular person, either.

"It's fine if you don't want to trust me again after this, Yuki. I would understand. I would advise you to never trust a vampire. Then again, _you_ are a vampire…"

Yuki blinked, surprised that he had guessed what she was thinking.

"Don't worry. I can only see into your mind when I feed on you. I can't read your mind any other time. I have lived so many years, it's easy for me to guess what you might be thinking right now. However, I think it is only fair to tell you that I do wish you would trust me again. My greatest desire is that you would choose of your own free will to stay by my side. I can be very persuasive when I want to be. Only trust me if you want to. Only decide to come along if you want to. Don't let me talk you into it. Trust your instincts."

"Okay. I will," she said, and then took another step toward him.

Now she was standing by his side, looking down at the top of his bowed head. She really was considering sitting beside him, despite all the insanity of the last few minutes. He seemed, more than anything, utterly exhausted. She could understand. She was exhausted, too.

"Over time," he suddenly went on, "as my new body grew, as my love for our parents grew, I developed a different view of the world. Maybe some of that was as a result of the subtle influence of your brother's consciousness. It's hard for me to say for sure, since our minds and bodies had become one. Over time, I decided that I would try once more to use my knowledge and power to help others. I kept my presence secret, even once the immature body finally developed the motor skills needed for speech. I played my part as the infant son, then the toddler, then the obedient child named Kaname Kuran, like the real Kaname who had come before him. For a time, life was so pleasant and gentle, I even lost my will for vengeance upon Rido.

It was during this time that you came into the world, Yuki. I loved you from the moment I saw you, less than a day old, your eyes still pinched shut, your fat little baby hands curled into neat little fists. It didn't matter to me that you were just a tiny, blind infant who knew nothing, because I knew you would learn and grow. It didn't matter to me if you decided to one day get married and leave the family behind, or if you grew up and decided you hated me. I knew that these were just two possibilities out of the infinity of time and space afforded to our kind. Despite all of this, I vowed I would love you, stay as close to you as I could, and protect you until the end of my life, no matter the cost.

Then Rido re-emerged to renew his rampage. His plans hadn't changed. He still desired a powerful servant, since the first one he created had apparently disappeared. I had changed enough since the last time he saw me, he did not realize my identity for a time. Somehow, even though your parents had carefully hidden you from vampire society, Rido managed to find out about your existence.

To create a new servant, he needed the blood of yet another pure-blood child. Innocent, powerful blood, that of a pure vampire who has yet to take her first life. This time, the child he sought out was you.

He came after you with everything he had. He sent legions of his servants to kidnap you. He manipulated the political system in such a way that your parents were disgraced in vampire society, forced into hiding, and left unprotected. The attempts to kidnap you were myriad, ongoing and progressively devious.

Father realized my true identity when Rido appeared in the flesh at the new home we'd established in exile. Rido set about putting the house under siege with his vampire servants. He drew father outside, and attacked him. I tried to defend father, but when I attempted to strike a blow against Rido, I was unable to follow through.

Rido immediately recognized that this must mean I was one of his vampire servants, and quickly deduced that I must be _the_ servant that had escaped all those years before. I remember the look in Father's eyes as he realized the truth. He hesitated, and so Rido was able to attack first, to weaken him.

Father managed to severely damage Rido's body with a Vampire Hunter's weapon, making it impossible for him to use his healing abilities. In the end, though, Father was unable to strike the final blow before Rido was able to tear him apart and absorb his essence. Before he turned to dust, I remember that Father told me it didn't matter to him who I really was, because to him, I was his beloved son.

I had expected him to curse me as he lay dying, but instead, he said… he said he loved me. And… I…" Kaname's voice faltered.

He covered his face, consumed with his grief, and stayed that way for several minutes. Yuki couldn't help it: she sat down beside him and put her arm around his shoulders. She felt sure he was finished, but finally, he lifted his head and said, "Rido fled into the darkness to rejuvenate his injuries, but left his vampire servants to finish his work. With your father out of the way, he knew it was only a matter of time before Mother was overwhelmed, and he finally had the powerful blood he needed to resurrect his servant.

Mother died without knowing the truth about me that very same night. She sacrificed herself in order complete the spell that changed you into a human girl. Her purpose was to make your blood useless for the resurrection ritual, and thereby give him one less reason to pursue you. She wanted you to have a chance at a happy life, instead of the life she had, one of political machinations, terror, darkness and blood.

There was chaos as the vampire servants swarmed the house. I rushed to protect you. Disoriented, you managed to escape the melee unscathed. You ran out into the snowy yard, and fled into the woods. This was the moment when your human memories began, with me rescuing you from Rido's vampire servant in the snowy forest.

Of course, you didn't know who I was or what was happening. I wish things had happened differently, that your first memory could have been pleasant. Instead, you were accosted in the woods by a menacing vampire, and you watched in terror as I tore his still-beating heart from his chest. He was full of evil thoughts, and so his blood tasted disgusting, like wet sand in my mouth. I didn't even bother draining him.

I knew that wherever we went after that, danger would follow us. Rido did not realize what Mother had done. It was obvious, though, that this madman wasn't going to stop coming after you or I, even once he discovered your blood was useless in the ritual he had been trying to perform.

It would be assumed that if you weren't found in the Kuran residence, you must have left with me. Until Rido's servants realized otherwise, I could draw them away from your trail. Rido would be pursuing me instead of you for a while, in an effort to capture and subdue the first servant he created. Just being near me would be dangerous for you.

Quickly, before the servants could mobilize to come after me, I took you to the house of an old family friend, whom you know as Headmaster Cross, your adopted father. I begged him to watch over you. What you didn't know, though, was that Cross was one of the strongest Vampire Hunters the Association ever had. This person was the only one with a remote chance of successfully protecting you while I led Rido's servants in hot pursuit around the globe.

When things settled down, and it became apparent that Rido had been forced by his injuries to go back into hiding, the political tides began to change. I was eventually welcomed back into vampire society.

No one knew who I really was, and since I showed myself to be a powerful pure-blood claiming to be the Kuran heir, and I was about the right age to be the infant son of the Kuran house, they didn't dare question me too deeply. No one realized that you had survived Rido's attack on the Kuran mansion, partially because very few people in the vampire world even knew of your existence. In fact, it was widely accepted that our parents went mad, killed all the servants and committed suicide together, though there were still vague whispers floating around that I or someone else had murdered them. I did everything I could to squelch these rumors, without seeming to actively squelch them, of course. I needed to be able to move in vampire society in order to protect the secret of your existence, and a murder investigation would make that more difficult.

Once it was safe, I couldn't resist making regular visits to check on you. It was during the course of these visits that Headmaster Cross and I conceived the idea of establishing a night class at his school for vampires, to improve vampire-human relations. Or, more accurately, I persuaded him to do so, without telling him that this needed to happen in order to make my renewed plot to kill Rido go smoothly. He wouldn't have approved of anything that would lead to violence. This time, though, I plotted for reasons better than simple vengeance. I did it because I had vowed to protect you on the day you were born. Since it was obvious Rido would try to kill you the moment he was able, the only thing I could do was move to kill him before he rose on his own and came after you.

That, of course, was how Zero got pulled into the mess. I couldn't kill Rido myself, so I had to find someone who could be made strong enough, who was able and willing to strike the final blow when the time came."

"So you used Zero as a pawn."

"In my defense, he was already another vampire's servant before I made him my own. I offered him a chance to keep his life and his sanity for doing what he already wanted to do, which was kill vampires. His previous master seemed only to be enjoying toying with him, didn't she? I doubt she would have ever actually given him any of her own blood, despite her promises to the contrary. It was only a matter of time before Zero slipped to level-E and The Association killed him. It's possible that all the power he received so that he could kill Rido saved his sanity and even his very life."

"Or, it's possible that he really could have resisted feeding until the end. He might have stayed relatively human, and never ended up being the grotesque monster I saw on the battlefield last night."

"No one could be that stubborn. He would have eventually lost his mind, either from the obsession that comes with the refusal to feed, or from the unbearable guilt once he began feeding."

"You don't know Zero as well as you think, then. He's as stubborn as his horse. What did headmaster say about him once? It was actually kind of funny. He said, 'You can bury that boy ten feet deep, and he's so stubborn, he won't suffocate. Just to spite you, I think he'll learn how to breath dirt instead.' That's what he said."

"Perhaps I don't really know him. I do know vampires and blood-lust, though. There has never been a human, once turned, who can resist the urge to feed for very long. It was amazing the way Zero resisted for more than four years before he fell to temptation. Now that you are a vampire, you must understand what I mean by that."

"Yeah," said Yuki. "It hurts. If you can smell blood, it hurts worse. Until you taste it, the pain only gets stronger every second, no matter how much you resist. You'll do anything. Say anything. You'll lie to someone you love, you'll even kill them, just to get that pain to stop. Your body almost acts on its own to move you toward the source of the wonderful scent. It's like in the cartoons, when a good smell picks a character off of their feet, and sails them through the air to the tasty pie that's cooling on the windowsill. Only, instead of it being a pie, it's your classmate who just got a little paper-cut. You want to lie, to say anything you need to in order to coax them into a broom-closet somewhere and then feed until their heart stops beating. And that's just someone you kind-of know, someone you've been going to class with since you were kids but never really took the time to talk to. When it's someone you really feel strongly about, the blood-smell is like fire burning throughout your entire body. You want to tear them apart."

"So you know how you made me feel, then, all those times you let Zero drink your blood?"

"I do now," she nodded.

"I could barely stand it when Zero was feeding on you. I wanted to reduce that boy to dust every time he drove his fangs into your perfect, pale flesh. The pain was tremendous those nights when the smell of your blood would come wafting in my bedroom window. All I could think about was the way your warm, red blood must taste as it went pouring down his ungrateful throat. I would have torn him apart that very first time, if it wasn't for the fact that I knew you would never forgive me for harming him, and neither would I be likely to find anyone so willing or able to kill Rido for us."

"I almost apologized for all the pain I caused you, but then, I'm not sure I want to say I'm sorry to you right now…" she trailed off.

"I don't want you to apologize. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't know because I didn't tell you. I didn't tell you because it would have made you suffer. You don't owe me anything. I am the one who devoted myself to you, not the other way around. Remember, Yuki, I said 'love at any cost'? I meant it. Any cost."

Yuki leaned against him.

"You can't do that, Kaname. I'm an idiot, and even I know that 'love at _any_ cost' is a terrible idea."

"I've already chosen my path."

"But what about love at _almost_ any cost?"

"Love at any cost," he insisted wearily.

"Does that mean you're going to sacrifice yourself, too, someday? Like our parents did?"

"Yes. Someday soon."

"No. No! You can't!"

"The wheels are already in motion. I've lived enough, and most of it was painful, lonely and long. I've done many evil things in this life and the last, some of them possibly worse than Rido depending on how you would judge me.

I honestly believe that Rido deserved to die. If that is true, then I have long deserved a fate worse than death for my own misdeeds. After what I've done, I know I don't deserve your love. Even if you wanted to love me, it would be a wasted effort. I am damaged beyond repair, corrupted to the bone, mired in my own evil. I am lost. Only this sacrifice can possibly redeem me."

"That's not fair. I thought I was allowed to choose!"

"You are, Yuki."

"Then how can you say these things? How can you expect me to…"

"You need to know the truth, even if knowing it makes you flee from my side this very night."

"I… I can't."

"You can't know the truth, or you can't flee?"

"I can't leave you. Even after all you've done, the one thing you haven't done is leave me. You've stayed by my side, just like you promised. How can I leave you after that?"

"There is still hope that you'll be able to evolve, Yuki, to change so that you will survive the coming light. I'll die either way, by violence, by sacrifice, or from an overabundance of light in the world. I can't change. I need the darkness to survive."

"You can change. I want you to stay with me. Come live in the light with me. We'll find a way!"

"Don't be a fool. People never change, even if they make different decisions. They are what they are," he sighed, and momentarily, his shoulder leaned against hers. "And I am a monster.

Your brother's mind and mine are at a consensus on this. When the plan our parents set in motion comes to fruition, he and I will sacrifice ourselves so that others may live. It is the only way we can express our love that will not lead to more darkness," he paused to glace at her sidelong, but didn't say anything more for a while.

"So, that's two against one, your brother and I in favor versus your one vote in opposition. I'm sorry, Yuki, but we've got the majority."

"It's not fair that you give yourself two votes," she said, frowning.

"I was trying to make a joke. Humor has never been my strong suit."

"Yeah," she agreed, "As if that isn't obvious. Too serious. Bad timing."

"Always," he said, as he wrapped his long fingers around her far shoulder in order to pull her closer.


	2. Unreasonable Reasons - 2 of 3

Part 2 - Unreasonable Reasons

Kaname stood.

"We should keep going. The night is half over, and we still have a ways to travel."

He paced down the road with Yuki trailing after him.

"So what's this plan you keep talking about?" said Yuki, when she had finally caught up to him.

"I'm afraid to tell you."

"Why?"

"You might hurt yourself trying to stop me."

"It's true."

"And I don't need your help. You've already played your part. This last stage is too risky. I can't let you get involved."

"I don't want you to leave me like Mother and Father did. Is that so wrong?"

"After all I've done to protect you, I couldn't allow you to put yourself at any further risk. I promised to protect you."

"And you have. I'm still alive. I'm still me. I came out without being eaten, or going mad. I came out almost the same Yuki I was before, if not a little stronger."

"I know what I'm doing. I won't let anything happen to you. Don't pry, and don't try to stop me."

"Or…?"

"Or you'll end up in danger. You don't need to sacrifice yourself. You are one of the people I intend to sacrifice my life to protect. You have to live on without me, or there would be very little reason for any of this."

"Okay," she said, "but can you at least tell me how much time we have before you…"

"Only a couple more centuries," he sighed.

"But that's… that's a _lot_ of years! You said 'a couple more centuries' like you only have a few months to live."

"To our kind, it isn't very much time at all."

Yuki slowed her pace to contemplate this, and Kaname walked on ahead.

"If," she said, "If we were both human, we would probably get less than a century together before we grew old and died."

"But we're not human. I never have been. Technically, neither have you."

"That's true. But if we were."

"If we were human, we never would have met. I would have been dust ten times over before your great-great-grandparents were born."

"I'm sorry. I'm not used to this infinity of time stuff yet."

"As the years pass, you'll get accustomed to the idea. That, or you'll go insane like some vampires do. It's not really something I can explain to someone who hasn't lived the years."

"Try. Maybe I'm smarter than you think."

"It's not about intelligence, Yuki, it's about experience."

"So you're back to shutting me out, then, are you?" she huffed, stopping in her tracks.

Kaname stopped, and walked back to the place where she stood.

"We need to get to the house in time to sleep before we have to move on. I can tell you more tomorrow, after we rest."

"Kaname? How many years have you hidden the truth from me? All that time, you could have been telling me some of these things I would eventually need to know, feeding them to me slowly so they wouldn't come across as gibberish or implausible lies. Instead, you shut me out any time I asked the right questions. Other times, you purposefully led me on, so I wouldn't guess at the truth. You took advantage of my trust in you. You manipulated me. You punished me and others whenever I inadvertently tempted you to deviate from this plan of yours, even when I didn't have the slightest idea what I'd done wrong."

"Yes," he said. "I did all of those things. I've been terribly cruel to you, Yuki. I intend to spend every moment until my last atoning for my many, many sins."

"I'm not taking another step until you finish answering my questions!"

When he didn't respond, she stomped her foot and added, "We're not done talking, here! We're not done talking until I say we're done! You owe me the answers to years of questions!"

Kaname's eyes flickered, a dim red glowing somewhere down deep inside. Slowly, he stepped closer.

"They're just excuses," he finally said, his voice almost a whisper.

"What are just excuses?"

"The explanations and answers you think you desire, all of them, they are only rationalizations set up to hide something else, something that's so deep and dark, there are no words that can ever bring it into the light of reason. I could talk for the rest of my life, and still, the only way you can understand the horror of infinity is to experience it. Nox Perpetua. 'To know the truth, you must go mad like all the other monsters.'"

"What are you talking about? It sounds like a quote from some kind of lunatic religious book!"

"We call it the Nox Perpetua."

"Great. What is this Perpetua thing?"

"I'm glad you don't recognize it. The Nox Perpetua is a text misused by vampire society and The Association alike to justify this ongoing conflict between the races."

"Have you read it?"

"Of course. I helped to write parts of it."

"Has Headmaster Cross read it?"

"I believe it's still required reading for Association Hunters in training."

"Do… Do I have to read it?"

"No. Not unless you want to. My copy was stolen centuries ago, though, so you'll have to find another one."

"So what does this book have to do with the answers to my questions?"

"Partially, it is a highly inaccurate account of Vampire and Hunter history. I didn't write that part. That was already written and simply included in the text along with the works of several long-forgotten authors. A man named Abasticus wrote or at least compiled the first half of it.

I read what he had compiled. Then, I tracked him down, and I..."

"And you… did what?"

"I killed him."

"What?! Why?"

"I didn't want him to write any more inflammatory texts. I saw the potential the things he had written had for creating unnecessary fear and hatred between the races. And, I was young and stupid… and hungry. Before anyone realized Abasticus was dead, I wrote what became the second half of The Nox Perpetua. I had intended to turn it into a text that stood alone, and publish it under Abasticus's name, but that didn't happen. Someone discovered his body before I finished it. His papers were eventually compiled, and the two manuscripts were inadvertently combined and edited as a single piece. It still seems funny to me that the resulting text become sacred to both vampire and hunter societies."

"What was in the second half?"

"It was a short but telling synopsis of vampire behavior. As accurate a depiction I could create of what it's like to live and think and remember forever. It was meant to create understanding between the races," he sighed. "Like I said. I was stupid and young.

It is yet another sin that I must atone for," he sighed.

"I'm sorry. There is a reason these things were kept from you until now. You are still basically a baby by Pureblood vampire standards, even though you're a young adult by human standards. No matter what any of us said to you to explain our actions, the things we know and understand are the kind of things a person can only learn through thousands of years of living. They make no sense until you've lived the years. To younger, newer beings, our behavior resembles that of the insane, deathless gods of ancient Rome. We move so slowly, sometimes accomplishing just one small thing in what would be an entire human lifetime, locked in place by thousands of years of experience, pain, madness, with an endless nightmare of death the only visible future, the only past we have known. At other times, driven by desire, prompted by circumstance, we move faster than the human eye can detect."

"I hate being treated like a pawn!" she said, turning away from him.

"You are so young. So. Young," said Kaname, as he took her by the shoulders and began to walk her down the road. She didn't resist. Instead, she was like a stone in his arms.

"Do you really understand what it is like, living tens of thousands of years, watching not just individual people but whole civilizations be born and die, seemingly in the blink of an eye?" He paused, and pushed his face into her stringy, tear damped hair. "Please don't cry. We are not humans, neither one of us. Neither you nor I should be held to human standards. This is the way of our kind, Yuki. We are monsters in human form. We do things and understand things that the humans could not bear to even know. We prey upon the innocent. We live forever. We devour our own kind, sometimes just for lack of anything better to do with all the time we have been given.

Some of us take this farther than others, like our Uncle Rido, and go completely insane. I tried to sleep forever when the same madness came for me, but I was wrenched forth once more by Rido's selfish plotting. I would have returned to my slumber, or let this eternally repeating nightmare of blood and death take my mind if it wasn't for the unusual circumstances that forced me to spend time observing your parents."

"I just…" said Yuki, "I just don't understand any of that! The whole thing is just an excuse for hurting people!"

"I'm sorry, Yuki. I don't expect you to understand," Kaname sighed. "I have lived so long, I have experienced just about every kind of life you can imagine. Some of them, I fell into by accident, while many of them I chose to live for the novel experience, moving on once I had learned what I wanted to know. Eventually, though, if a vampire lives long enough, they find that there are no more novel experiences to have. They find that no matter how they try, the people around them always say the same kinds of things, and do the same things. Very rarely, after this state sets in, will a vampire find himself surprised or even honestly interested in what is happening around him. He will feed, kill, take, give, stand, sit, rest and run, a heartless, mindless, hopeless being, made of nightmare, madness, death and worse than any of that, utter boredom.

Boredom, more than any other thing, is what eventually leads an ancient vampire like me, like the others I knew before, into the realms of pain, madness and death. We try, for a while, to encourage people around us to interact and react in novel ways. We experiment with good and evil. We sabotage. In our growing frustration with the world, we destroy needlessly, reveling as the world burns. We become monsters without even really meaning to, regular minds grown unseemly and evil with too much power. We go insane in the unrelenting passage of time.

This is the reason I slept and had to be resurrected in the first place. I had become a monster. When I was finally put down, I chose to stay down, because I honestly desired to take that one last great adventure I had yet to experience, my own death. But death didn't come for me as quickly as I had hoped. Time passed. Things changed in my absence. Vampires mixed and warred with humans. Eventually, the generation of purebloods that was destined to resurrect me was born. One day, I opened my eyes, and the world was changed. And yet, it was still the same. Still the same!"

"I still don't understand, Kaname," she said, allowing him to hold her tighter still as he walked her toward their destination.

"Here is a piece of ancient wisdom that probably won't make sense to you until you've lived as long as I have. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is as simple as words make it seem to be. When something happens, it physically happens only once, in a certain way. The truth is the truth. If there are witnesses, each witness sees something slightly different, thinks different things about what they saw, and describes it differently, as well. A predator sees a meal, and his prey sees a murderer. Consciousness acts like a distorting echo on reality, distorting the truth by adding past experiences, point of view, prejudice, judgment and emotion to what was a simple thing that happened a certain way. There is no avoiding this, though. We all see the same world, and yet we don't experience the same world at all. This is especially true for immortal beings like ourselves. Our long experience of the past distorts our view of the present so much, to less experienced beings like humans, our behavior is unfathomable. When we try to use words to explain this, there are never enough of them to make our view totally clear to any other being. Never. Most vampires learn to act without explaining, because words never do any good."

"I…"

"You don't understand?"

"Not really, Kaname."

"Exactly, Yuki," he sighed. "I did not kill your brother, but I was the reason for his death. I chose not to kill your parents because their relationship interested me, because I fell in love with them. I am a monster, but Yuki, all vampires are monsters, as I have been saying all along. That is one thing I never lied about to you.

You ask me if I am your brother. You ask me if I am your brother's murderer. You ask if you are my pawn, or if we are our parents' pawns. You try, and fail out of fear, to ask if I love you. The words I have to answer you are inadequate. Yes? No? Neither? Maybe?

It doesn't matter how much I explain. My point of view is unique, complex, inexplicable. I am a monster of ancient nightmare. Can I be tamed with such a fragile whip as love? Am I only toying with all of you, pretending to be interested so that I can wreak maximum havoc when I reveal my true intentions? Only through experience will you come to understand me, Yuki, if you even want to. Someday, you will have to choose. Do you choose to hope for the future or fear the past? Do you choose to trust the monster? Can you ever forgive me enough to truly love me?

Your parents showed me that even monsters of ancient nightmare can love other beings, can be redeemed by that love, forgiven for all of the atrocities they have committed, become a source of light in the world. The longer the list of sins, though, the more difficult the quest for redemption will be. We must pay for each and every one of our sins, no matter how many there might be, before we can enter the light. Sometimes, for some of us, the only way we can obtain redemption is to forfeit our life. Our sins are too great to offer anything less.

In human legend, there is a place called Hell, where human souls go to be cleansed and redeemed of a lifetime of sins. There is no hell for vampires, no demon thirsting for our souls, no fire that can cleanse our souls. Our lives are our hell, and we are the demons. Unless we choose otherwise, our sins are never-ending, and never forgiven. Can you forgive me? Can I love you? Will any of this redeem me, or you?

Your brother's essence lives on within me, but since he was so young when Rido performed the ritual of resurrection upon him, your brother cannot speak or act on his own. Sometimes, I feel him watching through our eyes. Sometimes, I sense his emotions rising within me. We are one, he and I, in mind and body and will. There is no question. The two souls, the nightmare monster and the infant that inhabit this body as one have long since reached a consensus. Even if you hate us, WE love you, Yuki. When he loves you, I love you."

Kaname leaned back, releasing her so that she could look up at him. Fear, confusion and anger roiled in her expression. Gently, he stroked Yuki's hair, and then pulled her close. He hooked a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face upward. Her lip trembled, but she didn't seem to be able to move away from him.

"When he desires you…" he said, his eyes glowing violently red in the dusky shadows.

Yuki had grown to expect that he would bite her now, drink her blood. She knew that there would be nothing she could do if she chose to resist him feeding upon her. The red, glowing eyes were a visible sign of overwhelming bloodlust in every vampire Yuki had ever encountered. Even Lord Kaname, the most powerful vampire she knew of, didn't seem to be able to fully control himself when the thirst for blood had brought him to this point. Yuki braced herself.

Instead, he kissed her. There was no blood. No bite. No pain. Kaname held her gently, and he kissed her.

Inside, Yuki was an avalanche of confusion. She hadn't had the time to fully assimilate all of what Kaname had told her. Her mind vaguely registered that she was being kissed, but it almost seemed as if it was happening to someone else, another Yuki. Phrases floated around inside her mind. She felt her body responding to his, kissing him back without even consulting her.

'I wish he didn't tell me the truth,' she thought.

She was still lost in thought when he pulled away, his eyes already returning to their usual color.

"Yuki…" he said.

She didn't respond.

"Yuki, do you understand why I didn't tell you everything at the very first?" he said, stroking her face.

"Yes," she said, finally, as tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes. "I do, Kaname."

"Are you still coming with me? It is, as always, your choice. I will never force you, even if I need you."

"I…" Yuki stood up, her face suddenly resolute. "I am. I'm coming with you. Who else would be better to teach me how to be a vampire? You talk about living thousands of years as a vampire, knowing things and doing things that humans and lesser vampires cannot even tolerate knowing or doing. So, I have to come with you. And, I want to know more. I don't care if it takes hundreds of years, I need to understand."


	3. Come Into The Light - 3 of 3

Part 3 – Come Into The (Red) Light

When the two of them arrived at the hidden estate, the others were waiting for them, pink-cheeked and healthy looking from the hunt.

"I've had the staff prepare rooms for everyone," said Aido as soon as everyone had settled down. "I wasn't sure about the arrangements for the two of you," he smirked, watching Kaname and Yuki carefully for some kind of reaction.

When he didn't get it, a shadow of disappointment spread over his face. "So, I arranged for you to have the second-floor suite."

"Yes," said Kaname sedately, "that will be fine. We've got a long journey ahead of us, so you should all get a good day's rest." He paused, stared at Yuki for a moment, then started toward the staircase. "Yuki?" he said, beckoning for her to come with him.

Yuki followed him blankly up the stairs and into the mouth of the dark hallway beyond. In silence, they walked past what seemed to Yuki an eternity of identical closed doors.

"Yours is right here," he said, stopping before one of the many indistinguishable doorways. "I'll be right next door if you need anything, Yuki," he continued. "Sleep well."

He turned without another word and walked further down the hallway to the next door. Yuki put her hand on the door and looked after him. "Goodnight, Kaname," she said, and went inside.

The room she found herself in was windowless, as she had learned to expect from vampire dwellings. As advertised, the room was part of a suite, as there was a second door on one side of the room, leading to what she assumed must be Kaname's room. The part of the room that interested her the most, though, was the large, well-appointed, comfortable looking bed on the opposite wall. She dropped her bag by the door and flopped into the bed without even bothering to remove her coat.

Three hours later, despite her utter exhaustion, Yuki still couldn't sleep. There were so many new things she still needed to sort out, and her mind refused to stop racing around in circles, like a rat in a too-small cage. She fully expected that at some point, there would be a knock on the door between the suites, and that Kaname would appear to provide a distraction, welcome or unwelcome, from her present worries.

"Why am I thinking about that?" she whispered to herself in the darkness. Kaname was the cause of all of these worries. Why would she want to face him for a moment longer than she had to right now?

The room next door was silent and still, even to her newly acquired vampire senses. She couldn't even hear Kaname breathing in his sleep. Yuki rubbed her eyes and rolled over in the bed for what seemed like the thousandth time. All she wanted to do was drift off to sleep, but she simply couldn't manage to do it.

"That's it," she whispered to herself. "Who cares why I need to see him? I'm not going to sleep until I he tells me more. I…"

She swung her legs around and slid off of the tall bed. She walked toward the door that led between the suites, reached out and tried the handle. The door was locked. With a resolute sigh, Yuki lifted her hand and knocked.

There was no response at all, as if the room next door really was empty. Where had Kaname gone?

"Kaname?" she said, hoping that she was mistaken. "Kaname?! Where are you?!"

Still, there was no answer from the adjoining room. Yuki felt her heart skip a beat in her chest again, as she realized that Kaname might have never gone into his room at all. She didn't actually see him go in, she remembered. She had gone into her own room first, and left him standing in the hallway.

Cautiously, Yuki went to the door leading out into to the hallway. Slowly, she pulled it open. Light spilled from her room into the hallway, illuminating its length for a several yards in either direction. Beyond this, the hallway was hidden in unfathomable shadow. All the dim little lights the two of them had passed on their way to the suite had been turned off, and Yuki had no idea where she could even begin look for a light switch.

"Kaname?" she breathed into the shadows that seemed to suddenly press close around her, squeezing the air out of her lungs. "Kaname? Kaname?! You said you'd be right next door. Where are you? Kaname?!"

She took a single, tentative step into the hallway, expecting at every heartbeat to be attacked or…

She wasn't sure what she really expected. She had spent a lifetime amongst vampires, though, and she knew it wasn't beyond them to do any number of terrifying, unexpected things.

She took another step into the absolute pitch blackness of the hallway, then another. Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened to her. Slowly, she forced her feet to take her past the border of light created by her room's open door, into the darkness of the hallway.

As her eyes adjusted, she found that her night vision had improved since she had become a vampire. She hadn't really had a chance to test out her enhanced vampire senses, so she hadn't realized that, as a vampire, she had little to fear, even in absolute darkness. She could see everything.

As she continued to walk down the seemingly never-ending hallway, she even started to enjoy herself a little. Finally, though, she came to a place where the hallway took a turn, and stopped. Maybe here was the place where something terrifying was about to happen to her? She didn't know, and even if she had these enhanced vampire senses, she still couldn't see through walls and around corners.

Heavy footsteps approached. Then, there was a brief flash of light. A gentle voice from around the bend said, "I sensed you coming. You don't need to worry, Yuki. It's only me," said Lord Kaname, as he stepped around the corner. "You couldn't sleep either?" he questioned, holding a welcoming hand out to her. "Join me. I was enjoying some fresh air, and thinking. I could use your company."

"Kaname!" said Yuki, her emotions broiling between surprise, relief and confusion.

He stepped back out of sight, and there was another brief flicker of light, followed by receding footsteps.

"Are you coming?" he said from somewhere beyond.

Yuki stepped around the corner, and was surprised to find herself facing a thick, black curtain. When she parted it, she could see a narrow staircase, a bright light streaming down from above. Daylight.

She mounted the stairs, climbing quickly to meet him. When she reached the top, her dark-adjusted eyes were nearly blinded by the sight of the early afternoon sky.

"Whoa!" she said. She had forgotten the way her vampire senses would make her over-sensitive to direct sunlight.

"I'll wait until your eyes adjust," he said, and leaned on the railing lining the edge of the balcony.

"I thought this mansion was underground…" she said, still trying to get her bearings.

"Parts of it are," he said, looking out over the treetops. "That hallway is built inside a tunnel that eventually leads up to this opening, an old escape route that, at some point in the building's history, was remodeled to be a little tower with a balcony that overlooks the forest."

"It's… um… very nice."

"Well," he smiled, "I really didn't ask you up to discuss vampire architectural follies."

"Kaname!" Yuki exclaimed suddenly, "You frightened me! You said you would be right next door, but when I knocked, you were gone!"

"I could hear you all the way down inside the ground, tossing and turning in your bed, then coming out to search for me in the dark. You were never in any danger. But I do wonder what were you doing, knocking on my door while everyone was supposed to be sleeping?" Kaname said, smiling at Yuki playfully. "It seems…"

"It wasn't like that! Kaname, you know that isn't fair!"

"I'm sorry, Yuki," he said, still smiling. "I just… It's just now that we're not running for our lives, or fighting terrifying monsters, I thought for this moment… I was hoping we could really enjoy spending time together," he said, offering her an inviting hand. "I'm sorry. I really was only trying to make a joke, again. As I said, I've never been any good at that sort of thing. Will you join me?"

Yuki allowed him to take her hand. She offered no resistance to him when he pulled her toward the place where he stood against the railing. His arms wrapped around her, holding her tightly.

"I wish we could just enjoy each other's company right now. You know, the life of a vampire can sometimes be dangerous, painful, violent, terrifying. No matter what the legends say, it is not a life that any sane person could honestly desire. Rarely do we have a chance to just relax, to sit and look at the scenery with the person we love most. Always, there is some lethal plot afoot, some deadly foe who stalks us. If you intend to survive, you better learn to cherish these rare moments of bliss, no matter in what form they come."

"Is that supposed to be my first vampire lesson?" Yuki said, pulling away from him slightly so that he could see her skewed smile.

"Yes," he said, his own smile falling away as he gazed into her eyes.

"Yuki," he said, and then he kissed her again. This time, she was ready. This time, she kissed Kaname back.

It seemed like this kiss lasted forever, like Yuki could feel herself spinning, circling, round and round for an eternity as she kissed him, this man Kaname Kuran. Finally, her consciousness spiraled down and settled inside herself once more, just as Kaname pulled away from her.

"What…" she gasped, astonished, "…was that?"

"Like it?" said Kaname, smiling down at her. "It's a little trick I picked up over the years."

"How did you do it?"

"Pressure points, mostly."

"It felt like an out-of-body experience!"

"And a judicious application of some of the more subtle vampiric powers."

"Mind control?"

"No. More like suggestion. But it only works if you accept my suggestions, if you trust me enough to allow it. Without your trust, it wouldn't work."

"Well… I…" Yuki stuttered, flabbergasted. "It was… nice."

"I used to use it to hunt, to draw in humans when I wanted to make them my servants. I wondered if I could still do it. Obviously, I can."

"Oh. So… Does that mean that I am your servant? I mean, does that mean you have become my master and I your vampire servant, since it was you who returned me to my true form?"

"It's hard to say. Nothing quite like this has ever happened to my knowledge. I don't think of you as a servant, though, if that's what you're asking. I don't intend to treat you like my servant. If anything, I want a companion. I want you to be my equal, even if I have to create an equal in you. If anything, I am _your_ servant until then."

"I don't really want that, Kaname. Why would I want that? You've done so much. To me. For me. I wish I was strong enough to be your equal, though."

"You will be."

"And I'm still not certain that I like the idea of you sacrificing yourself. It seems like overkill to me. Can't we come up with another way to…"

"No," he said, cutting her short. "You have to let me make my own choices, Yuki, and this choice was made long ago."

"You can't blame me for trying, though."

"I'm just glad that you can trust me. This means that, at least for now, you have made your choice."

"Kaname," said Yuki, a hard edge to her voice. "Why didn't you just… ?"

"Why didn't I just ask you? Because, I'm just as flawed as anyone else. I am still learning to trust you, too, Yuki. I hope…" he paused, looking into her eyes, "I hope you will be willing to forgive me for that. I know that the only way two of our kind can build a connection is if we are honest with one another about what we want. If we aren't able to do that, well, then we will eventually become enemies."

"I don't want to be your enemy, Kaname. You shouldn't worry. I could never do that."

"Yes, but this is another thing I have learned through the long years of my life. When you have almost infinite amount of time to spend with someone, they will eventually have the chance to become your everything, from friend to enemy, from family to lover, from slave to master, and back again."

"You talk about us being honest with one another about what we really want. What you really mean is that you want me to tell you that I want to be with you, don't you? What you really want is…" she looked down at the place where their bodies touched, and pushed away from him.

Kaname pulled her tight against him despite her attempts to resist him. Yuki gasped, the air crushed out of her by his suddenly tightening arms, and looked back up at him. His eyes glowed red, though she couldn't read his expression. Was he angry? Hungry?

"That's right," he continued, once he had her attention, "I wanted you to be the first to say it. Not because I am weak willed or frightened of the feelings I have for you, but because you are the one who seems to have reservations about how you might feel about me. You've already said you would do anything for me, Yuki, and obviously, you are still willing to go to extraordinary lengths for me, despite the change in our circumstances. I don't want you to make such a decision, though, based only on this habitual sense of devotion you have developed for me. If you want me in the same way I desire you, then you will do so without a sense of obligation to do anything I ask you to. You can do what you want. I refuse to force your hand. You are in no danger if you deny me what I desire…"

"Desire," she interrupted him, repeating the word with a touch of anguish in her voice. "Kaname?"

"Yuki?"

The reddish glow grew stronger as he looked down into her eyes.

"You never really tell me what you mean, Kaname, even when you seem to try. You need to tell me now, though. What do _you_ desire?" she said.

"I… want…" he breathed, his hands clasping and unclasping involuntarily against her backbone.

* * *

 _For your inconvenience, this section has been removed due to explicit content._

 _Please message me if you want this part of the original file. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink._

* * *

"I… how did you do that?" Kaname said, amazement in his voice.

He sat up, and began to lick what was left of Yuki's rapidly drying blood from his fingertips.

"What? No, I…" Yuki stuttered in confusion. She'd never heard Kaname talk like that before, as if he didn't know what to do next. "I didn't…"

She didn't even know what she was denying.

"I didn't intend to…" he muttered. "What I mean is, I don't think it makes much sense at this point to deny my feelings for you. I'm so sorry, Yuki. I just…"

"You imagined that if this happened at all, it would happen differently?"

"Many, many times I thought about you, and me, and…"

Yuki smiled sleepily, too exhausted to even attempt to be coy with him.

"I never thought…"

"You never thought we would finally give in, finally do what we both have wanted all along, in the bright of day, on a balcony perched on the side of a building you just recently described as an 'architectural folly', with birds singing all around us? You never thought I could forgive you for being what you are?"

"Yes. Exactly. I had always imagined that if we ever made love, it would be in darkness and despair. It would be only because circumstances required, or because we were about to die, because it couldn't matter what we did anymore. I my mind's eye, I saw death, fire and blood. I never expected bird-song and sunlight to accompany us. And if it ever happened, I never wanted to…"

"Kaname," said Yuki as she sat up, her voice taking on a serious-sounding edge to it. "You know that was my first time, right? I mean, not with blood, but my first time…"

"I know, Yuki. And I hurt you. I lost control of myself. I…"

"I love you, Kaname. I want you to know that love is the reason that this happened the way it did, right here in the light of day, with no despair, no nightmares, no mind tricks or lethal conspiracies. I wanted you because I love you. I always have loved you, and I always will, even if you are supposed to be some kind of 'monster of ancient nightmare'. It's too late. I loved you before I knew the full extent of you, even though I always knew you were a vampire. I can't just stop loving you now because I know more. That's not how love works. Anyways, you can't hurt me the same way you could have before. I heal just as fast as you do, now."

She pointed to the spot on her neck where he had bitten her, now decorated with a smear of bright red blood, and stained with grey dust from the stone floor. Despite the layer of grit and gore, the underlying skin was perfect, intact and glisteningly healthy.

"Yuki, why don't you run away from me? You must realize that you could be right about what you said last night. I may someday be the one who kills you, perhaps even without meaning to."

Yuki sat up, a shadow growing within her eyes.

"Why would you say something like that?" she frowned.

"I am a monster, Yuki," he sighed. "Monsters like me always eventually hurt the ones we love the most. If you love me, I will hurt you. I may even kill you."

"Are… Are you _planning_ on hurting me?"

"Never…"

"But…?"

"…but nonetheless, I very likely will. It is part of our nature, Yuki."

Yuki frowned and turned away from him.

"Do you understand?"

"I… I'm a vampire now, too, Kaname," she said, her voice trembling with suppressed emotion. "You must know you aren't going to change my mind as easily as you could before. You don't frighten me anymore."

"I thought not," he sighed again, "but I hope it doesn't bother you if I still try to protect you, even if it is from myself."

"And, if you wanted to kill me, you could have just now. I saw how upset you were. You didn't want to hurt me. You saved me instead."

"I saved you from myself," he said, hanging his head.

"It doesn't matter. I forgive you because I love you. And, I forgive you because you weren't trying to hurt me."

"You don't have to forgive me, Yuki. That was unforgivable. I almost killed you. I ruined what could have been a perfect moment."

"How long did you wait?"

"What?"

"How long did you wait for me, though?"

"Decades. A long time. Too long."

"Exactly. I don't even know how you managed to hold yourself back that long. So far, I've struggled just to keep from hurting someone I care about for just a few hours. It was torture. I wanted to tear these people apart, people I had known and loved all my life. And I knew, even as I consumed them, I would _still_ love them. I would spend every day after that regretting my inability to protect them from myself! Even as their blood coursed through my veins, I would hate what I had done, and I would hate myself for living at their expense!

Why do you think I decided to come along with you in the first place? I was going to hurt my family. I was going to hurt my friends. To protect them, I had to leave them. How can I be angry at you for losing control with me after more than ten years of waiting? I know exactly the way you felt!"

Kaname looked at her, his eyes wide.

"I may be new at this vampire thing, but I'm not going to do anything I don't want to do, even if it _is_ supposed to be part of my nature. Forget nature. Nature is for beasts and mindless monsters like Rido, and I refuse to be a beast.

Now that I know the truth, I can be whatever I choose. Once, I was a little girl, cloistered in exile. Then I became a human. Neither of these two things were my choice. I _chose_ to be a protector, though. Now, I find out there is this monster inside me as well. So be it. I'm not going to let that stop me from taking my own path and making my own choices. I have that right."

"You sound more and more like the pureblood princess you always were," he said. "You remind me of your mother. You remind me of Juri when you say things like that."

He held out his hand, now licked clean of Yuki's blood.

"I'm glad you're turning out to be such a quick learner," he added, and then helped her to stand. "It's the only way you're going to survive as a vampire."

Before she could try to respond, Kaname was gone, passed into the dark staircase leading back to their adjoining rooms. "Sleep well, Yuki," she heard him whisper with her heightened senses from somewhere deep inside the underground mansion. "I'm sorry, and I love you."


End file.
